


burned out

by escapismandsharpobjects



Category: White Collar (TV 2009)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exhaustion, FebuWhump2021, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, el is mentioned, went with a kind of different meaning for "burned"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29643687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escapismandsharpobjects/pseuds/escapismandsharpobjects
Summary: febuwhump day 22: burned.Neal doesn’t know how long it’s been since he last slept. A few days, he figures, but that’s as precise as his burnt-out brain will allow him to get. He feels dead on his feet, but he’s doing his best to make it seem like he’s fine.
Relationships: Peter Burke & Neal Caffrey
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45





	burned out

**Author's Note:**

> hi!! i will confess i might have stretched my interpretation of the prompt here but i wasn't really feeling a burn in the traditional sense so i went with burned out, which i think works if you don't think about it too much. tbh i am not really sure how i feel about this fic...on one hand i feel like it sucks and is ooc but on the other it really did feel...some kinda way to write lmao. anyhow maybe you will enjoy? we will simply have to see.

Neal doesn’t know how long it’s been since he last slept. A few days, he figures, but that’s as precise as his burnt-out brain will allow him to get. He feels dead on his feet, but he’s doing his best to make it seem like he’s fine. 

“Morning, Peter!” he calls out to the agent, hurrying into the elevator behind him. “Beautiful weather today, huh?”

Peter looks at him, eyebrows raised. “Since when do you talk about the weather?”

_ Since I’m pretty sure if I stop talking I might fall asleep right here, _ Neal thinks. “Can’t I appreciate a little sunshine?”

He hopes it’s sunny out. Truthfully, he’d paid zero attention to the weather on his way to work this morning. It had been enough of a thing just getting his arms and legs to move when and where he wanted them. 

“You can,” Peter replies, as the elevator arrives. “Just didn’t seem like a very  _ Neal  _ topic of conversation.”

He shrugs, breaking away from Peter to make a beeline for the coffee machine. As he well knows, the coffee is fairly terrible, but it wakes him up marginally, so that he feels almost alive when he sinks down into a chair along with his fellow members of the White Collar division, listening to Peter give a morning briefing about their case. 

Neal doesn’t pay much attention. He knows this case inside and out, has been studying it virtually nonstop for the past...however many days it’s been since he last slept. He can’t  _ stop  _ thinking about it, can’t stop working on it. Something about it begs his full attention, and he knows part of it is just the constant desire to have Peter approve of his work, but there’s something else about it, too, something uniquely compelling, and he can’t bring himself to stop working on it, no matter how hard he tries. 

He  _ can _ , however, not pay attention when there’s a whole room full of people talking about it. 

“Neal?”

He’s thinking about the strange lack of suspects, the high-profile witness…

“Neal. _ Neal. _ Hello?  _ Neal.” _

Finally, he snaps out of his thoughts. “Yeah?”

Peter shakes his head. “Never mind.” 

Neal tries his best to pay attention to the rest of the briefing, but it’s nearly impossible. The coffee is already wearing off, his eyelids feel like they’re made of lead, and his sluggish mind is currently only capable of focusing on one thing, which happens to be his own thoughts about the case, and not whatever it is Peter’s saying. 

The briefing ends, and Neal moves to stand up, sitting back down into his chair when a wave of lightheadedness hits him, at the exact same moment that Peter says,

“Caffrey. You stay back a minute.”

Neal looks up at Peter, who is now standing over him, looking very menacing. 

“What did I talk about in that briefing?”

He rubs a hand down his face, tries to focus his eyes, tries to focus his brain. He has absolutely _ no idea _ what Peter had been talking about. 

“The case?” he suggests, yawning with a force that makes his ears pop. He wishes his coffee cup wasn’t empty, wishes he had the strength to go refill it. 

“Nice try, Neal. What  _ about  _ the case?”

“I don’t know,” he mutters, sensing there’s no way around this. 

“Why not?”

He doesn’t want to admit it’s because he’s too tired to think. Doesn’t want Peter to know how much he’s been focusing on this case, which in the grand scheme of cases isn’t even that special. He doesn’t want Peter to know that he’s beyond exhausted, completely burnt out, and seemingly incapable of stopping to rest, for reasons unknown even to himself. 

“I was thinking about something else,” he says.

“What were you thinking about?” Peter asks, and sits down in a chair next to him. 

He shakes his head. “Nothing in particular. Just not very focused this morning. Sorry.” It’s as close to honest as he thinks he can get. 

“Can you look at me?”

_ What? _

_ “Neal.  _ Look at me.”

He raises his eyes, staring at Peter’s chin. 

“In the eyes, Neal.”

Very slowly, he meets Peter’s eyes, which scan his face with an intensity that really makes him want to look away. 

“Did you sleep last night?”

Neal looks away then, embarrassed at having been read so easily. 

“Neal. Have you slept at all in the past 24 hours?”

He shakes his head, blinks hard to force away the tears that, for some inexplicable reason, are forming in his eyes. He is so  _ unbelievably  _ tired, and he  _ wants  _ to sleep, kind of, and if he says that, Peter will just ask,  _ why don’t you sleep? _ But he  _ can’t  _ sleep, he’s thinking too much to sleep, needs to solve this case too much to sleep,  _ has  _ to solve this case to prove something that he doesn’t have a name for, to himself, to Peter, to  _ someone… _

Peter’s hand is on his shoulder, steady and warm. Neal wants to lean into it, wants so desperately to stop, just for a moment, and rest. But he can’t. He pulls away, stands unsteadily, hand braced against the table when black spots dance in his vision. 

He makes for the door, at what he assumes is a normal pace, but by the time he gets there Peter is blocking the way. 

“I can’t -” he starts. “Can you move, Peter, please?”

Peter shakes his head. Neal wants to push him out of the way, but senses that’d be a bad idea.  _ “Please _ just move.”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on with you. Why haven’t you been sleeping?” Peter asks, and his voice is horribly gentle and concerned and it makes the tears rise in Neal’s eyes all over again, and he can’t do this, he can’t - 

Peter’s hands are touching his arms, and there’s a silent kind of question there that Neal can’t bring himself to answer  _ no  _ to. He takes a shaky step forward, and then Peter’s arms are around him, and he can’t remember the last time he was hugged like this, and before he can stop himself or think the better of it he’s crying,  _ really  _ crying, face buried in Peter’s shoulder, and Peter is  _ letting  _ him cry, Peter is holding onto him, and then he’s gently sinking them to the floor, which is very welcome to Neal’s exhausted body. Peter’s hand moves in gentle circles on his back, and he’s saying things that Neal can’t quite hear, but his voice sounds kind and comforting, and Neal focuses on it for all he’s worth.

He has no idea how long they stay there, but at some point, he just stops crying. Peter lets him pull away, until Neal’s sitting back on his heels, feeling strangely more awake. “‘M sorry,” he says quietly, voice still thick with tears.

“What are you sorry for?”

He almost doesn’t speak, again. But he’s already cried on Peter’s shoulder, and it doesn’t get much more embarrassing than that. 

“I...haven’t slept in god knows how long. A few days? At least? And I don’t...don’t know why, it’s this case, but it’s not even that special, but something about it...I don’t know, I just...I just  _ have  _ to solve it, and I can’t stop thinking about it and I can’t sleep until we solve it…” he trails off, lost for anything else to say. 

_ “Neal,” _ Peter sighs, equal parts exasperated and fond. “We can solve this case.”

Neal shakes his head. “I  _ need  _ us to solve this case. Not just have the possibility to. I don’t know why, I just...need us to solve it.”

“And we  _ will. _ But how are we supposed to do that if you’re too burned out to even pay attention during my morning briefing? I need all the members of my team at 100%, Neal, and like it or not, we’re only going to be able to solve this if  _ you  _ get some sleep.”

He...hadn’t really considered that. Hadn’t considered that his well-being might affect the other members of the team, might affect the outcome of the case…. He’d thought it was worth exhausting himself, if only to let himself figure this case out faster, but he has to admit, Peter may be onto something.

“I didn’t think about it like that,” he confesses. “I was just so focused on solving this case myself...I didn’t think about anything else.”

“You can’t let yourself do that, Neal,” Peter says, standing up. He extends a hand down to Neal, who takes it gratefully, leaning on Peter for support when they’re both back on their feet. “Not just because it makes our work harder, but because it’s hurting you. Regardless of whether or not having you exhausted makes us a worse team, it means  _ you’re  _ hurting. I don’t want you hurting yourself for a case, no matter how important it might be for you.”

Neal feels himself hovering on the edge of tears again, a combination of his reaction to Peter’s words and an effect of the sheer exhaustion weighing down on him. Before he lets himself get all weepy again, though, he takes a deep breath, and focuses as best as he can. 

“Thank you, Peter,” he says, hoping that his sincerity comes through the tiredness in his voice. 

“You can thank me by letting me drive you home,” Peter says firmly, checking his watch. “El’s at work, but she’ll be back around four-thirty. I’ll be back after five. And in the meantime, you can lie down on our couch and sleep.”

Neal is slightly baffled by this, but too tired to question Peter as the agent leads him out of the room. The Burkes’ couch sounds nice, if a little odd - why not his own couch, at his own house? But the Burkes’ couch is easy to fall asleep on, anyhow, and in a place that makes him think of family and safety and warmth...if Peter wants to take him there, he’s not going to object. 

Peter drives them to his and El’s house in a comfortable silence. Neal leans his head against the window, breath fogging up the glass, mind for once not on the case.  _ There will be time to solve it later,  _ he thinks, and wishes he had realized that sooner. He’d just been too caught up in it, too focused, to let himself rest. But now that that rest is being forced upon him, he’s realizing how badly he really wants it. 

A few minutes later, he’s lying on the Burkes’ couch, a warm blanket thrown over him and Satchmo asleep on the floor next to him.

“El will be home -”

“Around four-thirty,” Neal interrupts Peter, words slurring as sleep begins to take him over. “And you’ll be home after five.”

His eyes are closed, but he imagines Peter waving goodbye from near the front door. “Sleep well, Neal,” Peter says, and the door closes and locks. 

For the first time in days, Neal sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! like i said i have no idea if this is like actually anything or not but it ended up feeling very nice to write... yes i am So So tired for literally no reason why do you ask? but anyhow i hope you enjoyed! thanks so much if you read it!


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